of Cornwall for an annual supply. This exportation to India speedily advanced the price in Cornwall, but the Cornish men, having found the benefit of such a connection, were not easily induced to relinquish it. An artificial system was therefore created, by which the East India Company were still supplied at a lower price than that paid to the tinners in Cornwall, whilst the price in the home market was kept high enough to make up the deficiency. By this system the quantity delivered to the East India Company had always reference to the produce of the mines, and the demand at home varying from 500 to 1500 tons per annum, the average price of tin in Europe was much higher than it otherwise would have been.

This very interesting trade with China was brought to a close in 1817 by the return of Cornish tin from China to London, and the consequent underselling of the artificiallypriced Cornish produce.

Such a state of things could never exist in these days, and it is a wonder that it could even then have been maintained. If in these days tin for export could be obtained at 257. per ton below the price of tin for consumption, it would be sold by telegraph for re-arrival from the port to which it was exported, and the seller would find himself undersold the next day by his purchaser.

The history of tin from that date to the present is only a question of figures and statistics, which will more properly find their place in the Appendix for the information of those who are sufficiently interested to study them.

The requirements for export and for home consumption have year by year increased, and with them the supplies from Cornwall and the East have been constantly increasing.

The Cornish supply, which was 2500 in the year 1800 exceeded 10,000 tons in 1873, and this quantity was more than doubled by importation, from the East.

The price has ranged from 607. to 1507. per ton, influenced by the abundance or scarcity of the metal itself; high prices, which stimulate supply and restrict consumption, invariably

result, in excessive production, and accumulation of stocks followed in their turn by lower prices and by restriction of out-put.

Increased consumption results from low prices, and values again advance, prices which favour consumers are bad for producers, and consumers suffer when producers are prosperous; but each one has to go from good times to bad, and from bad times to good, nolens volens, from pillar to post, as he journies through the world.

METALLURGY OF TIN.

CHAPTER II.

NATURE OF TIN-USES OF TIN-TIN ORE-TIN SMELTING-ADULTERATION OF TIN-SUBMARINE TIN MINE-DIVINING RODS-FUTURE OF OUR TIN SUPPLY.

TIN; Stannum, Plumbum Album, Jupiter; German, Blech; French, Étain; Italian, Latta; Spanish, Hoja de Lata; Russian, Blärha; Arabic, Resas; Sanscrit, Trapu; Malay, Tima; Hindostan, Kalai ; Siamese, Dibuk; Burmese, Kye-p’ku.

THIS metal which, after gold and silver, ranks first in value, is at the same time the lightest and most fusible of metals; tin is only seven times heavier than water, but, although the metal is so light, the ores are of the heaviest.

Tin ore is peculiar to the primitive rocks, and is generally found in granite; the metal produces a curious crackling sound when bent, has a slightly disagreeable taste, and has a peculiar smell when rubbed.

Tin melts with a gentle heat, and is very ductile under the hammer, yet it cannot be drawn into wire.

Tin considered upon its own merits is next to valueless as a metal, but used as an alloy or employed as a coating for other metals, it is possibly the most valuable which we possess.

Tin is sometimes given as a Medicine, and is employed for the preparation of cosmetics; it is used in the varnishing of earthenware, and, dissolved in nitric, muriatic, or sulphuric acid, it will produce purple, scarlet, or yellow dyes. There

are, however comparatively very few uses for which pure tin can be employed.

Mixed with copper in the shape of brass or bronze, its uses and purposes are almost endless and invaluable; from the bells of our cathedrals, or the highly finished breech-loading far ranging bronze guns of modern artillery down to the humble brass-button-the emblem of worthlessness—or a pair of brass hinges, we meet with tin everywhere and in everyday use.

Employed as a coating for brass or copper cooking utensils, it serves the purpose of protecting from the poison of verdigris, the food which is being prepared for the wealthy or prejudiced households who would scorn the use of anything so mean as a saucepan made of tin.

Used as a coating for iron in the manufacture of tin-plates, tin finds its largest and most expanding market; iron without tin would be valueless for most of the purposes to which coated iron can be applied; tin of itself would bruise, would bend, would melt, and moreover would prove far too valuable for the thousand and one purposes for which tin-plates are employed.

It is, then, the skilful combination of tin with iron which has created the immense and ever increasing consumption of English and foreign tin, and in tin-plates we find the lightest, strongest, brightest, cleanest material that we have, which is beyond competition, and which above all produces the cheapest package which can be obtained.

Tin was employed at a very early period for the purpose of coating iron and copper, but of the process employed we have no account; the words of Pliny, A.D. 23, incoquere and incoctilia, seem to imply that it was performed as in tinning iron wares, i.e., by immersing the vessels in melted tin.

It would also appear that it was done very cleverly, for Pliny relates that the tin coated vessels were scarcely to be distinguished from silver, and he expresses surprise that the coating did not materially increase the weight of the vessels. The same historian observed that the coating of tin improved the taste of the food; and he mentions, as a curious experi